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Thursday, December 19, 2013

Sante Barley Domination Run

Sante Barley Domination Run is a fun run with 3k, 5k, 10k and 21k distance, held at the Aseana City, Paranaque. The race route covers the Cavitex road. Held on November 24, 2013, the event was mainly sponsored by Sante Barley.

Pre-Race

After my second marathon, I was pretty unmotivated to run. I had no training runs and I given up on the fact that I was on "off-season". Most of my workout were done in the gym and the rest was in the pool. Up to the day before the race, I was hoping to skip this race but CJ insisted we run so he was my motivator for this run.

Actual Race
On race day, I was half-expecting CJ to oversleep which means more sleep and no running for me. But on 2:30am, he said he was on his way and I prepared for the run. I knew we weren't going to run for a PR so I was prepared to finish before 4-5 hours.

I found CJ in the activity area and we chatted with other blogger friends, Jinoe, Queenie and Franc while waiting for the delayed gun start. For the first part of the race, we went with the excited runners and ran but on the first intersection, we walked. After a while, we decided to do 2-1 run walk galloway. Running in Cavitex wasn't really a treat. Most of the time, you are running besides trucks and buses and I don't get what is novelty of that.

Takbu kunwari with CJ

Halfway in the route was the long road to the turning point. It was a great sight and since we weren't in race mode, we stopped and took photos. At that point, we spotted Bee who stopped to push us to run. As lazy runners, we continued to walk until we found a downhill turn and did 2-1 galloway.

Posing sa mahabang bridge

The sun was starting shine brightly after we passed the turn around point and we decided to walk as the road was an uphill climb. At the 14km, we saw the last runner which means we were in the back of the pack. We continued walking and running a little until we passed some runners who were wore some sort of costume.

Puro lakad

For the rest of the way to the finish line, we did mostly walking. It was getting hot and most of our friends were halfway done in their post run breakfast. At the last turn around point, we found fellow runners making their way out of the venue but we still continued walking. (Di naman kame last runners!) We passed by the already done color obstacle and walked to the finish line.

Lakad until finish line

As we claimed our finisher's shirts and medal, I lined up at a slightly bigger size as I would expect that the small ones would already run out but the medium sized ones also ran out. (C'mon that was more than 3 hours!) And I ended up with a large shirt.

Post Race
The food places near the venue was full and our friends had already made their way home so we opted to have breakfast at MoA. We were tired and hungry and after checking out a few restaurants, we ended up having a chicken meal in McDo. Not a lot of food for that 'coz we burned less than 1,000 calories on the slow running and walking for that race.

Review
The race route was a welcome change but as I mentioned there wasn't really noteworthy that makes Cavitex a must run road. You run alongside trucks and buses. In the later part of the race, a car was even on the road where runners were allocated to run. The sights were mostly trash and sunrise and the air wasn't that fresh.

Post Race

I wasn't running on peak race mode so this wasn't an issue for me but all hydration stations were composed of water stations and no sports drink. For a 21km run that would a pain. We found no bananas on the route, maybe 'coz we were slow. But we didn't get to eat anything on the route.

The finisher's items were unique but reminded me a lot of Shrek (so parang rip-off ng Shrek... :p ) but the giveaways were cool. I intake and drink most of them in my morning meals.

Overall, it wasn't a bad event as most netizens would suggest but it wasn't the best either. It was just fine. Just OK...